Day #23 Tuesday

Warm up

Jump rope 2 minutes

Strict pull ups

Strict dips

Strict toes to bar

GHD back ext

OH duck walk

Skill

Rope climbs & back squats

Partner WOD

15 minute AMRAP

2 rope climbs

Back squat until you’re tagged

CrossFit- Don't fear the fitness

When I first stepped into CrossFit Alaska, I was intimidated by a sudden burst of noise. Participants in the class before mine were clapping and shouting, cheering somebody toward the finish of that day’s workout.

CROSSFIT IS LIFE-CHANGING EXERCISE

I love hard, intense exercise, but wasn’t terribly thrilled about the prospect of receiving that much attention. Part of me wanted to slink into the corner and start making excuses right away. I’m not as fit as I used to be, OK? And I have this bad knee …

Get over the CrossFit fear

I followed one of the coaches through some basic warm-ups, before the head coach rounded up the entire class for a quick demonstration of that day’s workout. The music started and the workout began -- the first heart-lurching rush down a roller coaster or, in my case, 21 burpees followed by 22 pull-ups followed by 23 wall balls … you get the idea.

Twenty-two what?

OK, I admit it: I can’t just crank out 22 pull-ups on my own. But there were plenty of scaling options, including elastic bands to assist each repetition. Once I got through that part of the workout the rest was manageable, in a jelly-legged, shaky-armed sort of way. I judge workout intensity by how long it takes me to hit the "I think I’m gonna puke" point -- and on that day, it only took three minutes.

Yes, you can do life stronger

Now that I’ve taken a few CrossFit classes around town, I’ve pushed the puke point back to 17 minutes, which is almost an entire 20-minute CrossFit workout. I’ve also practiced Olympic lifts; hefted giant, weighted balls; and run laps through a gym, hurdling weight benches along the way. In an informal survey of CrossFit ladies, the wide variety of exercises -- a chance to conquer activities you might not otherwise have tried -- was one of the most popular elements. As Dana Buonincontri, a New York CrossFitter, explains: "Not only do you get in sick shape, but it’s a mental challenge."
CrossFit exercises might seem fairly random, but when I dropped in on Lance Howard, an Alaska-based CrossFit trainer and owner of MotivationWOD.com, he pointed out that CrossFit actually focuses on a set of normal, everyday human movements. You may never have squatted a 7-foot barbell before, but you’ve squatted down to pick up groceries or a box of books. CrossFit trains you for that same basic movement, just using different equipment and putting more emphasis on proper form.

Conquer your challenges

I needn’t have worried about being "on stage" in that first class; everybody around me was focused on their own workout. But it doesn’t take long for family-like bonds to develop in a CrossFit box -- another enormously popular element in my survey, which drew a flood of emails from women of all ages, including a few in their 70s. What’s the glue that binds them all together? Mad results, from losing weight to rocking a bikini, or just rocking your very own mind and life. Jennifer T. Norton, a sports performance specialist with CrossFit 714, sums it up: "I love knowing that if I keep pushing myself, I can achieve those challenges."

More fitness trends

The top 20 fitness trends for 2012Kettlebell workouts: Why you need to pick up a kettlebellFitness find: Kick off 2012 with the Bar Method

Training Log/Journal Outline

Date:


How much sleep did I get?


How did I eat (1 best/10 worst)? 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10


Did I drink enough water? 1/2 your body weight + 60
 in ounces

How do I feel mentally (1 best/10 worst)?1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10


Did I work on my troubled areas in terms of mobility and flexibility?

WOD and Results


How I felt before/during/after the WOD?


Did I give it everything I have?

Day #22 Monday

Warm up

Roll back reach

Walk out to push up

Lunge complex

Dynamic walk

Skill

Floss hamstring

WOD

Part #1

4 X 200m repeats  

Part #2

10 minute AMRAP

Alternating Ping pong

Double under, 25 reps

Burpees 7

Coach, I Totally Get It Now!

Matt Foreman | January 20 2012  ShareThis Here’s a weird little phenomenon to think about, because it’s something that works as a blessing for an athlete and an irritation for a coach.  In your time as a lifter, have you ever had a situation where somebody gives you a technical piece of advice that totally makes everything click? This is probably a small suggestion, usually from a random person who isn’t your regular coach, and you feel like the secret of the universe has been unlocked when you hear it. For whatever reason, this little cue helps you understand your technique a little better, or it gives you an idea on programming that wipes away some confusion, something like that. It might even be something you overheard from a conversation between two other lifters, and you hijack it like a cigarette truck in New Jersey. This nugget of advice is exactly what you needed to dislodge your cranial region from your rectal passage. Now, here’s the peculiar thing. This piece of advice is basically the exact same thing your regular coach has been telling you forever. You’ve heard this cue before, and your coach has patiently tried to explain it to you ad nauseam. But for some strange reason, it totally snapped into focus when you heard it said in a different way from a different person.  Here’s an example. When I learned the Olympic lifts, my coach constantly hammered the importance of finishing the pull. He used verbal commands like “extend tall at the top” and other phrases like that. But I just couldn’t seem to find the right physical feel for the movement. Then one day, a random lifter I was warming up with at a meet said, “Wait longer on your pull before you jump under the bar.” WHAMMY!! I swear to god, it felt like a bottle rocket went off in my skull. All of a sudden, I knew exactly how to finish the pull and I slowly started morphing from pond scum into an actual weightlifter who kinda knew how to do the lifts correctly.  As I said, this guy didn’t tell me anything different than my coach had been telling me. He just said it in a different way, and it made sense.  This is a great moment for a lifter, but it can be a little annoying for a coach because your athlete comes running to you all atwitter and says, “Coach! Some guy told me to (blah blah) and now I’m doing it right! It totally fixed my problem!” The athlete is jubilacious with excitement, and you feel like hitting them in the head with a brick and screaming, “That’s exactly the same thing I’ve been telling you to do, MORON!!” Listen, this is just how it is with athletes. The brain works in funny ways and this is simply another example of that. Your lifters aren’t being disrespectful to you. They’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to do...learning. And this isn’t happening because you’ve been doing a bad job of coaching them. It’s just that nobody has a monopoly on the perfect set of coaching cues, and these little lightning bolts can sometimes come from unlikely sources. I guess the lesson is to always keep your mind open. I think athletes and coaches, especially ones who have been successful, often fall into the trap of thinking they know it all. Sure, we say things like, “You should always try to keep learning” because we sound like we’re smart when we say stuff like that, but we don’t really practice what we preach. We disregard the methods of many other people because we think we’ve figured it all out ourselves. We haven’t. None of us have.  The weightlifting universe is a complex place, and there will always be something new to learn.

Is it Paleo?

3RUN Parkour

Watch more video of Parkour on SICFIT on sicfit.com

Day #20 Saturday

Warm up
Burgner warm up


Skill
Power snatch


Partner WOD
Ping pong the following
Power snatch 10 x 5
Push ups 10 x 10
sit ups 10 x 10
Power snatch 10 x 5

My Paleo Kitchen

Day #19 Friday

Waaaaaaaaah!

Warm up

Jump rope 2 minutes

Hold the following positions:

·         Tuck

·         Pike

·         Hollow

·         Straddle

Skill

Hand walk (with & without the wall)

WOD

15 minute AMRAP

Max hand walk

Toes to bar 10

Dips 10

What is CrossFit?

Day #18 Thursday

Warm up

Wall climbs

Lunges

Duck walks

Inch worms

Broad jumps

Skill

Hip distraction pigeon

Back squats & mountain climbers

WOD

12 minute AMRAP

¾ body weight back squats

Every minute on the minute 7 mountain climbers

Zach's Paleo success story: "It really has changed my life."

Posted: Monday, November 21, 2011 8:55 am | Updated: 12:03 pm, Mon Nov 21, 2011.

By Jen Wielgus | 0 comments

If you've been getting annoyed with me lately because all I do is write/talk about the Paleo lifestyle and the goings-on at my CrossFit gym, well, you should call up my family in Chicago and commiserate.

No, really, I'm not going to apologize for being a broken record, or for bragging about the great results I've seen since going Paleo over the summer. Because I now know my blogs have made a positive impact.

I got an e-mail over the weekend from Zach, a reader from Louisiana, who has lost 42.6 pounds in six weeks. You guessed it: He did this via Paleo, which for the 1,000th time means eating meat, veggies, fruits nuts and seeds and not eating grains, legumes, dairy or anything artificial.

Zach -- that's him in the picture, by the way -- said he got interested in Paleo after reading my musings on itbut initially didn't want to take the plunge. Which all of you non-Paleos, a.k.a people who enjoy a piece of bread or a beer every now and then, can understand.

But he changed his mind and hasn't looked back. Here's his story, in his own words.

Background on me...I'm a 28 year-old married father with a spectacularly terrible family history of every obesity related health issue possible. Add to that the fact that I'm from Louisiana, one of the unhealthiest states in the Union (we tend to believe anything tastes good if you batter and fry it), and I obviously had some issues. I have always been active, but I still carried anywhere from 30 to 80 extra pounds, depending on what end of the diet yo-yo I was on at the particular time.

I finally got fed up about a month and a half ago after a particularly depressing shopping trip where I realized I was one size away from being unable to buy my favorite brand of jeans and decided I was going to do SOMETHING, and I remembered this Paleo gig I had read a little about after seeing it on your blog. I picked up Robb Wolf's book ["The Paleo Solution"] and it started to kind of click with me. I have since realized that there are tons of "Paleo" blogs on the Internet that are full of the kind of misinformation that scared me off initially, but if I stick to Robb's (as well as his podcast) along with a few select others I really get the information.

I'm pretty strict diet-wise. I do a fairly low-carb version of Paleo (carbs are my crack). Zero grains/gluten, zero legumes, virtually no dairy, no alcohol, one serving of fruit a day (usually an apple or blueberries), maximum two sweet potatoes a week, limited nuts (maybe two times a week). I eat a lot of veggies I never even considered before, and lots of protein. Breakfast is usually three eggs scrambled with some onion and peppers. I also take two 600-mg fish oil capsules daily, though I do it right before bed because I hate the aftertaste so I don't know how much good I'm doing there. I've also finally broke my Diet Coke addiction, so I'm caffeine and artificial sweetener free.

I just have to break in to say Zach is doing way better than me, because I don't think I'll ever be able to break my caffeine addiction. I drink three or four cups of coffee a day. And even though we lose points for in my current Paleo Challenge at Wrightstown Health & Fitness for drinking alcohol or using sweetener, I have been known to slip a Truvia packet in the daily coffee and slip some Tequila in my glass on the weekends. But, back to Zach...

As far as exercise...I basically follow Mark Sisson's primal fitness guide. I do sprints 3 times a week, lots of body weight exercises (squats, push ups, pull ups, etc), and walk, walk, walk.

Zach has lost a good amount of weight, as I said before, but I think this next paragraph is the really important part of the story.

I feel fantastic. If I'm an hour late for lunch, I don't feel like a raging lunatic with plunging blood sugar. I don't feel the need to constantly mainline sugar. I can watch someone eat a piece of cake without having to eat the rest of the cake myself. After probably 13 years of dieting and disordered eating, I don't spend most of day eating a meal, planning my next meal, or feeling like crap because I made poor choices. I know I sound like some kind of Paleo-pushing fanatic, but it really has changed my life, even if almost all of my friends and family think I'm crazy for doing it.

Now, you've got me researching CrossFit, though I don't know if I'm ready for that yet. LOL.

I've got news for you, Zach. Based on the exercise regimen you described earlier, you're already doing CrossFit. It's clearly working, so all you need to do is keep it up. And that includes the Paleo-pushing fanaticism. Keep that up, too.

I am so happy not to be the only nutcase around here!

© 2012 phillyBurbs.com . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Day #17 Wednesday

Partner Warm up

T-jumps

Jump overs

Wheel barrow

Partner carry

Skill

Hip distraction wall squat

Thrusters

WOD

15-10-5

Thrusters

Burpees

Chest slap push ups

Does the paleo diet work: Paleo success stories

If you are thinking about going to paleo diet, you must be thinking that does the paleo diet work. After all, what is the point of changing your lifestyle and eating habits if you don’t get the results you want. Especially since many see paleo diet as a restricting food plan (and lets be honest it kind of is – especially if you are eating out). So is the effort worth it or should you look for other options?

Few words about the paleo diet

As you probably know, paleo diet refers to a diet which is also known as a caveman diet. The basic idea of paleo diet is that we humans should be eating the food our ancestors ate long time ago as our bodies are used to that kind of diet. If looked back in the history, we have been agricultural societies only for few thousand years compared to tens of thousands of years eating like hunter gatherers. Also, only for the last few decades we have been overconsuming grain based food, such as bread, pasta and potatoes in huge quantities. Even during the industrialization we ate more meat in proportion than we eat nowadays. And that is before mentioning all the artificial stuff we eat – sodas, candies, chips etc.

Day #16 Tuesday

Even Fitness Models do CrossFit

Warm up

Row 2 minutes

Dip

GHD sit ups

GHD back ext

OHS

Wall climb

Skill

Shoulder distraction (lat & elbow)

Strict pull ups

WOD

15 minute AMRAP

Double unders & strict pull ups

5-10-15-20-25-30-35-40…

History of the Games!

Day #15 Monday

Warm up

Jump rope 2 minutes

Shoulder pass throughs

OHS

Rack stretch with PVC

Skin the cat

Skill

Power Clean
Front Squat
Push-Press
Back Squat
Push-Press

WOD

“Bear complex”

15 minute AMRAP

1 rep of the following

Power Clean
Front Squat
Push-Press
Back Squat
Push-Press